Cheers!

I'm busy at work. My 29 exam students are taking an oral school exam this week about their book list and I do my preparation and the orals themselves before and after the regular lessons. Exam tension hits at school and so I speak to my mentor students from 6 atheneum on those few moments that are still available in breaks and in-between hours. Then there's a stack of book reviews from my four fifth grades and poetry tests from two fourth grades.

In addition, I am busy doing odd jobs around the house: painting and gardening are required, I am looking for new carpeting for the landing, window hinges are loose and there are two lamps without hoods in the attic.

Enough reasons to think late at night that I deserve or need a glass of wine. I've done all those jobs nicely. My head is still full and it's getting late and a drink helps me relax. But I don't. I take a warm shower or meditate for twenty minutes. Then I fall asleep quickly, I sleep through better and wake up the next morning with a really clear head instead of all the thoughts I numbed the night before with that glass of wine.

Still, I skipped class this week. Not for any of the reasons above but because my boyfriend and I bought a house. During the whole process of viewing, consulting, looking again, even more consulting, calculating, measuring, planning and much more of that kind of nervous bustle, I did not drink. We do it all together and that already helps enormously against stress and worry.

But then the message came that the house was ours and that it is more beautiful and finer than we could ever have dreamed. Then the champagne came on the table and we were able to raise a glass with the two sons who were at home and a friend of one of them who happened to blow up. It wasn't even a lot and it wasn't about the feel of those few sips at all. It was about the popping cork, the tinkling of the glasses and the joy that radiated in all eyes.